GUNPLA Gundam Action!

Hey y'all! Sorry we've been so not-posty lately. February was a pretty blah month without much to report (besides what we've reported already). We've got some catching up to do, and I'm gonna start it with this post on GUNDAMS.

GUNDAM.

What is Gundam?  That thing above is a Gundam.  More specifically, it's a long-running animation sci-fi series about people who pilot giant robots called, well, Gundams. They fight each other, they philosophize, they discuss war and politics, but mostly they just fight each other. It's immensely popular in Japan and internationally as well, so much that it's been referred to as Japan's Star Wars. They even built a life-sized Gundam in Shizuoka.

For the love of Gundam!

As a middle schooler I watched the English version of "Gundam Wing" every afternoon on Cartoon Network.  It wasn't a very good Gundam series - there was a lot of talking and brooding and boring political treason I didn't care about.  Still, I kept watching because by the end it was always ROBOT FIGHTS.  And boy were the robots cool!  I went as far as to import the nicely articulated snap-together Gundam model kits from Japan, called GUNPLA.  I loved me some Gundams.

... Which is why I was so excited to hear there was a GUNPLA expo showing in downtown Hiroshima!  Of course, we went and it was sweet.  Here are some pictures from it:

The poster.  So exciting!

All sorts of radical GUNPLA Gundam models.  You can get an idea of just how many different Gundam series there are.  Look at em all!

They had a part where famous people customized their own Gundam models.  This is one is a Zaku II customized by American rock party guy Andrew W.K.

And this one is by Japanese J-Pop pretty-boy Gackt.

This was a really big and really complicated model - they had to put together all of the Gundam's inner machinery as well!

At the end of the exhibit there was a shop selling GUNPLA models.  I bought one and I talked Joanna into getting one too.  It was a lot of fun to put them together - like a magical time trip back to 8th grade!

Here's Joanna working hard on her lil' robot.  You can see the pieces the models come in.

Our finished Gundams!  Mine is on the left, Joanna's is on the right.  We got the cutesy "SD" or "Super Deformed" Gundams.

Alternate weapons!  What's cool about GUNPLA models is that they're not like other static model kits - they're more like really poseable little action figures you build yourself.  They always come with loads of extra stuff.

So that's our Gundam report.  Hopefully we'll be building more GUNPLA kits in the future - they're really cheap here compared to the old import rates!

Again, sorry for the delay - we'll have more posts up soon.  Till then, じゃあね!